Rememberences
by Dawn Forte
Summary: Ken revisits his past... giving the story of his recruitment to the newest member of Weiß


A note before we begin... ~_thoughts_~ _**flashback**_ and finally _ **~thinking in a flashback~**___

**_Rememberences_**

"Daijoubu Ken-kun?" 

Jerking slightly as a light touch falls on his shoulder. Eyes darting around the dim mission room,   
the television blank, quiet save the humming sound of the tape rewinding. 

_~Oh shit... I missed the mission briefing... baka yo...~_

"Ken?" 

His shaking brown eyes looking from a set of blue to a set of green, flushing a little at having zoned out.   
"A-Aa. Daijoubu desu." Gaze settling past Omi leaning over him, past Youji lounging on the couch, to the   
man leaning with arms crossed against the far wall, his upper body hidden in shadows. Yet his eyes can be   
seen. Those piercing violet eyes half hidden behind red bangs. Watching him, looking right through him...   
Bowing his head to tear his eyes away, fear clutching his insides, "G-gomen... I need to be excused."   
Standing and brushing past Omi and past a silent watchful Manx to head up the stairs from the dim mission room. 

"Demo Ken-kun--!" Sighing and looking at the door atop the stairs as it closes, Omi turns confused eyes at Manx   
then Aya. 

"Youji, Omi. You two can handle this mission." 

"N-Nan da yo?!" Sitting up from the couch. Turning to stare at Aya incredulously, "Since when do you decide if   
I'll take a mission or not?!" 

Aya turning to fix icy eyes on Kudo Youji, "I'm not taking this one. Ken's been distracted and will be a   
liability... so unless you want Omi to go alone, take the mission Kudo." Pushing away from the wall and walking   
past the silent trio, heading upstairs after Ken to leave them in heavy silence.   
  
  


Grabbing his a denim jacket off the hook by the back door with one hand as he pulls the door open with his left, br>   
stepping outside. 

_~Stupid Ken! Stupid!~_

Laughing at himself lightly; hearing the door close behind him as he slips his arms into the jacket sleeves. 

_~Still... how much did Aya overhear? Damnit! You should have been more careful... you should have... You_   
_KNEW they'd have to be watching him! How could you let your guard down just... for the hope of seeing him..._   
_talking to him again...~_

His feet carrying him past his sleeping motorcycle, past his team mates' vehicles as well, walking the familiar   
path down to the park. Its hard to see in the dark, but it doesn't matter because his feet know the way... and   
his eyes aren't looking anyway. 

_**The scent of grass half buried under snow. Cold, its cold out. Ken watching his breath rise up before his_   
_face, arms wrapped about himself in his red sweater, looking up at the stars as he cut through the park in the_   
_night. The frigid air making his nose feel ready to run. Just as his legs ache to run.___

_~Kase... I didn't do it... thank god You believe me... no one else does...~___

_His sneakers squelching in the dew-damp grass.**_

His sneaker squelching in the dew-damp grass, making Ken blink a little. His arms tightening about himself, fingers   
dragging at rough denim not at his soft worn school sweater. Slowly lifting his head to the sky... no stars. Its   
cloudy, the cold wind coming up and behind his right shoulder, sending his bangs ruffling to cover his left eye.   
Watching the clouds scuttle along, lit by the lights of the city below. 

_**~This place smells like... gasoline. But then its a warehouse Ken, they probably store things like that here...~___

_ Looking over at Kase, his brows knitting, "You... you really believe I didn't do it?"___

_Nodding, his face half in shadows, "'Course Ken, you're a good guy... anyone who really knows you, knows you've_   
_never been a gambler. That you're not the type to do such a thing."___

_Smiling, reassured, reaching out to brush his fingers down Kase's arm, "...arigato."**_

Frowning, his eyes pressing closed, flinching at the next memory. 

_**"Kase!" The lead pip hitting him from behind, glancing off his head and connecting with his shoulder to send him_   
_to his knees. "KASE!!" Again the strike.___

_Hearing his friend calling to him, looking up with one eye to see him being dragged away. The smell of gasoline_   
_stronger near the floor.___

_~No...~___

_The flick and flash of a lighter, a man's cruel smiling face before the source of light falls away and pathways of_   
_flame trace blue all around him on the floor. Dancing up before him as he tries to push himself up, feeling like a_   
_shoulder is dislocated.___

_"KAAASEEEE!!**_

Brown eyes sliding open, looking at the sky. It doesn't take a stretch of imagination to make the clouds into plumes   
of smoke rising up from a burning building... taking his life with them. Dipping his chin, eyes half closing as he   
turns his head a little to the left, turning an ear to a sound behind him. 

Hesitation, "...Ken?" 

The man in question again turning his face forward, knowing who it is by voice. His own sounding foreign to his ears,   
"...what do you want Aya." Aware his feet are wet inside his shoes from the dew. Eyes bland to see he'd led himself   
right into the middle of one of the park's many well maintained soccer fields. 

Silence from the redhead behind him, but that was to be expected. 

"He can't have always been... the way he was, na? I mean... at one time, he was really my friend wasn't he?" 

_**Laughing, his own small hand slapping the other boy on the shoulder as he runs past him, "Tag, Kase!"___

_"O-Oi!" A fellow peal of laughter. The sound of running footsteps behind him as Ken runs, pumping his eleven year old_   
_legs as hard as they'll go, but Kase's taller and has a larger stride. Soon a pair of arms wind around Ken, trapping_   
_his own feebly to his sides. "GOT YOU!"___

_ They both go down. Crashing into the grass, laughing and swearing, wrestling for superiority. "That's not tag!"_   
_A grass strained boy with bright brown eyes half gaining the upper hand.___

_"We're playing full-contact!" Hazel eyes equally amused as he tears up a handful of grass, shoving it up under the_   
_front of Ken's shirt, eliciting a squeal from the smaller boy.**_

"...I don't know, Ken." The low murmuring voice behind him actually carrying a little emotion. 

Ken just laughs, the sound holding no humour, his eyes glistening as he looks across the empty wind-blown soccer   
field. "That's alright Aya... neither do I. I mean... when did he stop being my friend, when was he only my rival...   
and when did he become my enemy. These are question's only Kase can answer." 

_~I'll ask him when I'm sent where I belong.~_

A soft sigh, the sounds of footsteps closing in on him, "I don't think even he could tell you." Ken turning his eyes   
to the right then as Aya crosses over behind him, coming to stand off to his side. His face as cool and dispassionate   
as ever, "Kase... seemed like he... blamed you for the faults in himself. Saw in you only good things... things he   
perhaps lacked, or things that were just.... never as strong in him as in you." Cold violet eyes, looking up at the   
skies that Ken had watched earlier. 

Ken turns his head a fraction, brown eyes looking wounded and angry, "Aya... don't pretend you understand this... that   
you understand _me_." 

The ex soccer player wanted to suck in a breath when those cold eyes focused on him with the turning of Aya's head,   
"I'm not pretending anything, Ken. I won't say that I understand what... you're going through. But I can see the   
pain in your eyes. It's the same as it was the night you killed him." Eyes narrowing, "He tried to kill you first Ken.   
Twice. Two times he--," 

"Three times." 

Blinking, surprise darting briefly in violet depths. Demanding silently that Ken continue and earning a sigh from the   
brunette. 

"He... faked his own kid knapping, had me beaten and left for dead... in a building set on fire." Understanding dawning   
in the eyes watching him. "When I woke up... I was in a private clinic...," Eyes wandering back to the soccer field to   
escape Aya's gaze that seems to pull the story from him. Making him think. 

_**"Hidaka-san? ...Hidaka-san."___

_~Where am I...?~___

_Stirring slightly on the bed, feeling cool covers over him. Brown eyes sliding open a crack to lazily loll about a dimly_   
_lit but stark white room, finally settling on a woman that looked to be in her mid-thirties, standing by his bed side,_   
_"Who...,"___

_"Shh..." The soft voiced woman, leaning in to adjust the blankets around Ken's shoulders, "They call me Ragdoll...," blue_   
_eyes looking Ken in the face through her glasses. "Tell me, Ken-san. What day do you think it is?"___

_"I...," Confusion tugging at his sleepy mind, he couldn't remember.___

_"Its alright not to know. Its the 27th."___

_"That's almost a mont--," Trying to sit up, the blankets slipping down his bare but bandaged chest. Stopped short, his_   
_wrists to either side of him under the blankets encased in leather restraints, "What the fuck?!!"___

_That calm sweet voice, speaking as if Ken wasn't raging on the bed. Intoning in a motherly way. "Hai... you were in a_   
_horrible accident." Moving to get a newspaper from the table beside the bed, coming back to hold it before the boy so he_   
_could see the blaring headline, the picture of a flame gutted warehouse and his own photo inset to that larger one,_   
_"You died."**_

Looking down at his feet, still feeling Aya's eyes on him like cold fire, "I'd been unconscious for a long time...   
they, I mean Kritiker of course, they had taken care of my injuries, the smoke inhalation and burns were the worst...   
and they kept me on drugs for a month or so. So I wouldn't wake up. When I did. I was legally dead, my family had buried   
a corpse that had been left in my place... I... I guess the people doing the autopsy were paid off. I was already dead   
they said... and they had nothing against making all those newspapers right." 

Looking up a little, seeing that pale angular face watching him, the long strips of red hair framing Aya's face stirring   
and slipping across his cheeks in the wind. "That's how you were recruited?" Nodding as he watched those angry violet   
eyes, "How you joined Weiss." 

"Aa. I met Omi up at the clinic. Once they finally let me up and about." 

_~I'd been sick of laying there with nothing to do but think about the fact that I was dead, that strangers owned my br>_   
_life...~___

_**Walking from his room, the fingers of his right hand rubbing his worn left wrist. Sore from the chafing of the_   
_restraints. Brown eyes flicking side to side as he walks down the hallway. The walls green, the off-white tiles on the_   
_floor icy under his bare feet, wearing just a pair of black sweatpants. They wouldn't give him more clothes than that,_   
_leaving him half naked to discourage him running off. Not that he would, looking out a window as he passes. The skies are_   
_grey and foreboding... the ground covered in a dusting of snow and bare of trees for over one hundred metres, where a_   
_chain link fence can barely be made out in the bleak background. Sighing and turning away as he shivers feeling goose_   
_flesh crawl up his skin. There were guards that could pick him off before he even reached the fence, he didn't see them_   
_ever... but he could see the cameras and knew he was always being watched.___

_"Hey! It's about time you got up!"___

_~What?!~___

_Lifting his head, startled at the voice, looking around at where he'd let himself wander... too caught up thinking that_   
_this was all like a bad George Orwell's story. Eyes settling on the young boy who was standing from where he'd been sitting_   
_ with his legs hanging over the side of an arm chair. Ken had wandered into a recreation room.___

_"Helloooooo... you're Hidaka Ken, ne? I mean... its unlikely you'd be anyone else." Ken blinking lost brown eyes at the_   
_sandy haired boy standing now before him in beige shorts and a pale powder blue sweater... that has puppies on it, "I_   
_mean... I haven't seen any OTHER half naked men running around here. Why don't they give you clothes? I mean... it's cold_   
_in here, they should at leas--,"___

_"E-excuse me?" Very confused.___

_Stopping his babble to blink large blue eyes at Ken, "Hmm?"___

_"Who... are you?"___

_Flashing a grin, holding out his right hand enthusiastically, "Omi. Tsukiyono Omi."**_

"Yeah... thank god Omi was there. I... really don't know how I would have handled it." Smiling just a little as Aya nods,   
admitting the two younger members always had been close. 

_**Days passed, Ken and Omi had the run of the place to begin with, moving up and down the halls letting Ken get used to_   
_moving after a month in bed. Talking like boy's their age.___

_"You played soccer huh? You look too young to be doing that professionally!" Laughing, blonde hair tucked up under a_   
_baseball cap as he hugs a basketball to his stomach, pausing to catch his breath in the small gym of this place.___

_"Um... I kind of am too young." Feeling himself smile weakly, "I'm only fifteen... one of the youngest players they had."___

_"Ohhh...," looking up at him curiously, blue eyes wide.___

_Coughs, "Yeah...," wanting to take the subject off himself before Omi can think of more questions, "And what about you Omi?_   
_Are you really a thirty year old here to spy on me?"___

_"What?!! N-no! I'm only Thirteen! Really!"___

_"I think you're lying." Narrowing his eyes and leaning closer, making the boy squeak. Hunching his shoulders and trying to_   
_ look menacing over the small blonde, "I think you're stringing me along like all these people here keeping me captive..."___

_"N-Nani?! Uso! Ken-kun I-- HEY!!!" Whining as Ken's left hand slapped up under his arms knocking the basketball up out of his_   
_grasp, the taller boy snagging the ball and dodging around the kid, "Ken-kun! Not Fair!"**_

Smiling a little to himself as the cold wind tousles his dark hair, thinking of those first few weeks before they started   
really training him, assigned him a teacher for karate, then gave him his bugnauks, "It was seeing Omi... knowing someone   
so young could adjust to having no past... that really gave me the courage to let go. Omi didn't know who he really was.   
He had no family, he told me he wished he knew about himself more... but that would hurt, to miss people." Looking at Aya   
then, his smile soft. "He was a friend and that's what I needed then I guess... not faceless people threatening me. Just   
someone in the same place I was." 

Cool eyes regarding him still, silently, forcing a laugh from Ken before he continued. 

"Saa... you probably think I sound like an idiot, don't you Aya?" 

"...no." Tipping his head to the side, a brow arching, "I understand what you mean, Ken. I think... you helped me in a way,   
when I joined." 

"What? By starting a fist fight with you?" Laughter evident in his voice, watching Aya from the corner of his eyes. 

"Yes. ...but more by being able to forget the fight the next day and just offer me breakfast and work in the shop." 

Chuckling, "That's good... I'm glad we didn't fight again in the morning... the shop wouldn't have handled it well." 

Watching as the redhead to his right almost smiles, turning away to look over the soccer field, perhaps thinking of when he   
too joined Weiss, "...is it true you fought Youji as well?" Did he sound... amused, by that idea? 

Blinking a little, laughing under his breath, tipping his face up to the sky as his arms uncross to slip his hands in his   
back pockets, "...god. Which of them told you about that?" 

"Did you?" 

"...yeah." 

_**It was May... the boys had been assigned to work in a flower shop under supervision of an elderly woman. Ken hadn't_   
_liked the idea of needing some old lady babysitting them, but she told him to his face that she was more worried about_   
_what a klutz like Ken would do to her flowers if she were gone than what might happen to the boy himself.___

_"Ne Ken-kun? Why don't you go back to school?"___

_Sweeping the floor, the metal grate down over the front of the shop already but unlocked. "No reason for it really Omi._   
_I'm dead. I'm learning how to drive, I'll take the test with one of the agents and if I pass they can get me a license_   
_with my fake identity. I've never been academic like you... my only chance for college was a sports scholarship and... well_   
_that's not going to happen."___

_Sad blue eyes watching Ken from where Omi sits at the register table, a binder open in front of him, "Demo Ken-kun, don't_   
_you at least want to--," Blinking and turning his head from Ken to the front of the shop as the metal grate is lifted.___

_Both boys watching as a young woman looking about twenty or so steps into the shop, her hair falling down almost to her_   
_shoulders in red ringlets. Ken tweaked a brow, eyes sliding down her form and as always stops at those damn socks.___

_~Why does she wear those? Does she have calluses or something? Maybe it's bunions. Or a planter's wart. Ewwww...~___

_"Gentlemen... I have some good news."___

_...___

_~A new member? What's with that?~___

_Riding in a black car, Omi and himself in the backseat. Both of them silent and wondering what waited for them. Ken looking_   
_at his reflection in the window as they drove the familiar path up to that clinic, his impatience getting to him. "Na..._   
_Manx?" Turning to look at her in the rear view mirror, "This guy... he's at the clinic. Was his coming the reason you got_   
_Omi and I out of there so suddenly?"___

_The woman's cool eyes meeting his a moment in the mirror before returning to the road, "Yes, it was. He needed time to_   
_recuperate... he's awake already and he's been trying to get out of there. We'd have shot him but we need his skills."___

_Silence the rest of the way, Ken busy thinking of the fact that his skills aren't all that needed... he'd have been shot.**_   


"Why?" 

"Hm?" Blinking suddenly, he'd let his mind wander again. 

"Did you have a reason to hit Youji, or did you just do it out of the blue as you did with me?" 

"Hey! You tried to slice me open! You deserved a punch in the face!" Incredulous as Aya just shrugs that aside. 

"Why'd you hit Youji."   


_**The two boys standing in the familiar green and white hallway, dressed in their usual clothes. Ken nervously wiping_   
_his palms on his jeans as he glances at the younger boy. "You read his file... what's he like?" Fighting not to eaves drop_   
_on the low voices of Manx and the new recruit behind the door they were by.___

_Omi sighing and reaching up to toy with one of his earrings, "It didn't say much... he can pick locks, and has some experience with criminal investigation. He's eighteen, no known relatives, and brought to this place after being beaten half to death and shot... that's all I could get_   
_from the file. I think a lot was omitted."___

_"K'so." Leaning back on the door, hands going into his back pockets, as he puffs at his shaggy brown bangs. "We're going in_   
_there to meet a guy who we know nothing about, he might be a total jerk... and we're expected to risk our lives with him?_   
_Wonderful."___

_"Maa.. Ken-kun." Laughter in his voice, "How do you think I felt, some guy in just sweatpants walks in on me watching_   
_Totoro, and I had no idea if he was a jerk or ecchi or anything, but I at least gave you a chance, ne?"___

_Making a face, "Yeah I gue--," The sound of the doorknob behind him turning coming too fast, the door swinging away behind_   
_Ken, "EEESSS!" Hitting the floor.... hard. Groaning, his hands trapped behind his back in his jean pockets, arched backwards_   
_before a low voice can be heard laughing making Ken's brown eyes ease open. Staring at a bare left foot.___

_"This... is one of the feared assassins?" Rolling onto his stomach and freeing his hands to push himself to his knees,_   
_looking up at a young man sitting on a hospital bed akin to the one he himself woke up on. The man had long dark wavy hair_   
_that fell to his shoulders and sharp green eyes. Sitting in just black sweatpants with the sheets pooled around his waist,_   
_right foot drawn in towards himself, left foot on the floor as he placidly puffed away on a cigarette. Chuckling at the dark_   
_eyed boy on the floor, "You have GOT to be kidding."___

_Omi looking in the doorway, glancing at Manx, at the man on the bed then down at Ken as the sixteen year old scrambles to_   
_his feet, sighing, "Ken-kun... you're making a bad first impression."___

_"The door came open! That's not my fault."___

_"Mmm... yeah well, will it be your fault when you accidentally catch a bullet with your head?"___

_Growling, Ken's dark eyes turning on the man lounging in bed as he smirks around the cigarette's filter, "Oh, and I suppose_   
_you were brought to this clinic for drug rehab and not to have lead picked out of you, huh big shot?!"___

_Green eyes darkening as he stands up, the sheets slipping to the floor, left hand snubbing out the cigarette in the_   
_overflowing ash tray, "You're a child... you don't know what these things are about." Pain somewhere in his voice; but Ken_   
_just flashes a grin, his anger surging at being called a child.___

_"You're only eighteen, that doesn't make you all knowing." His face flushing as the man walks closer, standing a good foot_   
_taller than the fifteen year old, leaving Ken at face level with his chest.___

_"Go home to your mother little boy... I'm not a fucking babysitter." Glancing past Ken at Omi, smirking, "And take your_   
_little girlfriend with you."___

_Ken lashed out before he thought it out, right fist connecting with the older boy's stomach, making him double over.**_

Flushing, remembering that line of teasing , one Youji seems to avoid. "Um... he called me a child." 

"I see. So you did the least childish thing you could, hmm? Beat him up." 

Feeling himself reddening worse even as the cold wind picks up, "Well, what else could I do?! I had to show him I could   
hold my own!" 

Aya just shakes his head, "Come on. I'm freezing, let's head back." 

"Aa... alright Aya." Looking at the red head funny for a second, realising he's been hiding his right side from him. Earning   
a arched brow from the cold faced man, "Na...," Taking his hands from his pockets just in time to catch a soccer ball flung   
at his face. "Oi!" 

Looking over the black and white ball at Aya, the red head's beige trench shifting around him, "Ken... some things in the   
past need to stay there. The ones we can't take with us... the ones fully lost." Left hand reaching up to brush fingers over   
his gold earring, eyes shifting to the side, "You have good friends still Ken... remember the good you can about the past   
and throw the rest away if possible...," Turning and starting to walk back out of the midnight park, "...you don't need it." 

Watching the shadows slowly swallowing Aya to the night, frowning thoughtfully before the images of Omi nagging Youji about   
smoking in the shop, Youji teasing Omi back about some exchange student girl who tried to pinch the boy's backside, and   
Aya in the background looking at the other two as if they were insane. Slowly a smile creeps back to Ken's face, turning   
the soccer ball over with his finger tips. 

_~He's right... you don't need it...~_

Dropping he ball and bringing his right knee up sharply, driving the ball into the air as he takes a hop back. 

_~I didn't die with Kase...~_

The ball reaching the highest point and starting it's decent down, Ken's brown eyes intent on it. 

_~People still know me...Still see me...~_

Smiling a little. 

_~I'm still Ken.~_

Pivoting and bringing his leg up again, twisting to connect with the ball sending it sailing down the middle of the field.   
Landing with soft wet noises through the ghostly white outline of the goal. Grinning, his breath condensing and being   
carried away to his left in the chilled wind before turning and running after Aya to walk home.   


*Owari*   
  


Eh heh heh... Conceived and finished the night of Aug 24/25 2001 @ 10am.   
Even if I didn't get the guts to post 'til 1:30 am on Nov 15th 2001   
  
  



End file.
